Here comes the Sun!
This is an image of some berries taken in my yard recently using my Lensbaby Composer, which give the soft effect. Mainly just a lot of work in Photoshop. This image actually uses three of one of my favorite texture people, French Kiss Textures (see sidebar for website links), to get this pretty effect: Atlelier Musing, Centre Ville, and Bohemian. Her textures are always beautiful and painterly. Lots of my standard adjustment layers were needed to get this effect along with a final adjustment in Nik Viveza 2. Also many layers of clean up and painting. Lots of fun but it took forever! Still, it is reminiscent of the Beatles song…..Digital Lady Syd
The Perfect Plant
This pretty plant sits on my kitchen table and I am not sure what kind of plant it is, possibly a Sherbert Ti. It creates pod looking objects that open up into leaves. This image was taken with my old Lensbaby Composer and was set to F/4 with the +10 Macro Lens attached. On a duplicate layer in Photoshop, Topaz (see sidebar for website link) DeNoise was opened and the Overall slider was set to 0.10 and Shadows to 0.20 – not much adjustment at all. Topaz Glow 2 was applied on a stamped layer (CTRL+ALT+SHIFT+E) using Blake Rudis’s Glow for Animals Settings preset and set to Color Dodge blend mode. (To download the presets that were for Glow but work fine in Glow 2, click on his Topaz Glow Webinar.) The now free Nik Viveza 2 was opened on a stamped layer and two control points were used – one to sharpen the pod as the main focal point and one to soften the blue in the background leaf. A Luminosity Red Channel Curve Adjustment Layer was added on top. (See my How To Use a Red Channel to Create a Nice Blended Image Effect blog for more info on this.) A little clean up layer and that was about it. Love what this Lensbaby does for a macro effect!…..Digital Lady Syd
The Mighty Ant
For some reason, this dandelion weed has grown to some humongous size by my front door in this major hot summer we are having and the ants are having a ball tromping all over it! I decided to pull out my old Lensbaby Composer set it to F/4 and Macro +4 lens to get this guy doing some kind of balancing act on a bud. This pretty much is how the image looked out of camera. I love the soft DOF you get with the Lensbaby. On a duplicate layer the now free Nik Color Efex Pro 4 was opened. The Detail Extractor was applied to mainly just the ant and a little bit of the foreground to give it a little more sharpness, and the Vignette Filter was used where a darker green color was sampled from the image to soften the bottom. Back in PS, Topaz (see sidebar for website link) Texture Effects’s Crisp Morning Run preset was applied (removed Adjustments, and added Diffusion panel, changed the Blur to 0.42, then painted back the ants, then set Strength 0.58, Softness 1.00) to get the beautiful turquoise effect in the background. I had not used this lens in a long time so it was a lot of fun to use!…..Digital Lady Syd
